The Dying Swan
by sophichka
Summary: Because this was her swansong, and she was going to make it beautiful. One shot. Bella/Jasper


She was broken. She had her whole life ahead of her, her whole life planned out, but it had been taken from her, snatched away when he left.

She was nothing. An empty shell of what she once was, unable to care about living, but unable to care about dying too. She lived day to day, night to night, never forgetting, never remembering. If she forgot, she was letting go, if she remembered, she was holding on. There was no balance, no poise.

She was a shadow, a ghost putting on a show of still being alive. She was a tangled mess of lies and deceit, no longer knowing truth from lie, love from hate, life from death.

She was Isabella Swan

.

Forks and Bella, they brought too many memories, too many chances to reminisce, to think about things she had pushed to the back of her mind. So she discarded her name, and drove, anywhere and everywhere, she just needed to get out of Forks.

She found herself standing in a cemetery in Maine, the ivy overshadowing everything, wild flowers scattering the graves. The moon was out, and the graveyard was cold. She shrugged her shoulders, her eyes dancing with excitement, and curled up on a bench for the night.

Because this was her swansong, and fuck, she was going to make it beautiful.

.

She lived hand to mouth, earning money through any means possible, unscrupulous or not. She was a floater, a drifter, but she needed more, she needed excitement. She wanted one last big hurrah, her one last triumph. She wanted to go out in a blaze of glory, because her life had to mean something.

She drifted around the country, stopping in a place once every few days, looking, always looking for something, _anything_.

And then, one day, she found it.

.

It was chance that she found them, or maybe not so much, thanks to his "knowing shit." She walked into them whilst she was putting gas in her truck, she saw him drop his sunglasses, and just for a second she saw his eyes. Red. Blood red. She wondered if this was the end, if the end was going to be at the hands of a vampire.

If it was, that guy up there in the clouds was seriously fucked up.

.

He was Peter, she was Charlotte, and she knew that the names rang a bell, but she was done with that life now and couldn't be bothered to care. She told them that her name was Grace, getting a kick out of it, even if they couldn't. He knew she was lying of course, but he didn't push it.

She had no idea what to expect from them, eternal life, death, dinner, but she wasn't too fussed. She just wanted out now, swansong or not. She couldn't be bothered with the shit that had suddenly become her life. She wanted to end it, and soon.

She still wanted that blaze of glory, though.

.

They were nomads, she was a drifter, it just seemed natural for her to go with them. They fit; the three of them had just clicked into being together, as if it had been that way for always. They wanted to change her, she was dead against that. She still wanted out, and she wanted out soon.

She was still working on her blaze of glory, the one last thing she would ever do. The swan, saying its farewells. It had to be beautiful, majestic, heartbreaking, haunting.

Fuck, yes, it had to be haunting.

.

She took off the middle of the night, leaving a note and a lily, a white one, for purity and death. She travelled, not knowing where she was going next, letting herself be pulled to wherever it was she was meant to be.

She had never been one for believing in destinies, but it seemed more and more like she was being pulled to her destiny by some higher power. But no higher power would take an interest in her, that was certain.

But fate comes calling for everyone.

.

She found him, almost instantly. Almost as if her whole existence had been for this moment. She came across him in an alleyway in Detroit. His name was Riley Biers, and her love was instant, unwavering and so strong that she thought her heart might give out.

Too bad he was just a corpse by the time she found him.

.

She wondered sometimes if she was cursed, if she was supposed to wander the earth for the rest of her life, always looking, never finding. It had been one year, one year since she left Forks, and she was still here, still wandering this lonely, cursed earth.

She didn't have time for whatever game was being played with her. She wanted it over, she had wanted it over for years, but that never happened. Someone, someone she couldn't quite remember had once told her that she attracted danger.

God, how she wished that were true.

.

It comes one night, when she is lying on a bench somewhere in rural Ohio. She feels it creeping up on her, black, stifling, _relieving_.

She opens her eyes, seeing a flash of red eyes, blonde hair, and she hears a soft southern twang before it all goes black.

And what a joke that she had come full circle after all.

.

She didn't die though, not then. She awoke to her new life with her super hearing and special powers and felt cheated. She was meant to die, he was meant to kill her, not turn her. She had wanted her swansong, her blaze of glory, and he had cheated her out of both.

She wasn't going to give in though, she was going to die, she couldn't live like this. She could deal with the killing and the screaming, she could deal with Jasper, she could deal with any shit that life threw at her, but she didn't want to live.

Why the fuck could no body understand that?

.

She had heard of Maria, heard about what she had done, she had spent enough time with Peter and Charlotte to have become accustomed with Vampire history since the end of the War of Independence. She had heard of the Major of course, of Maria's god of war, but she had never realised that it was Jasper, never realised that the man who had changed her could kill her within an instant.

He didn't though, his time with Alice had changed him, he wasn't that person anymore, or so he said. He didn't kill and maim for a living, but oh, how she wished he did. She needed a way to die, she needed her blaze of glory, and what better blaze of glory than being killed by Maria's god of war?

But she had a plan though, of course she did.

.

Maria welcomed her with open arms, Isabella Swan, the dying swan; people had been talking about her for a long time. Her one last dance, she explained to Maria, that was what she wanted. Maria agreed, and happily, because she had been like Bella once, but she had never had this chance.

She took over half of the southern states before they caught up with her. She was in the middle of her last great arabesque, the one before she falls from grace. They let her have it, they let her take California, the jewel in her crown, before they stopped her dance.

She went down gracefully, her swansong coming to a finish, her blaze of glory all burnt out. The fire licked and danced at her and she smiled, the grace and beauty in her feature accentuated by the light, and it was the first time that anybody had ever seen her smile.

It was over, it was finished, the swan was dead.

And so the lights go down.

.

**I'm not entirely convinced as to how much I like this, but I was watching The Dying Swan ballet on youtube, and this just, well, came to me, I guess. It took about an hour, and it's completely unbeta'd, so apologies for any mistakes.**

**Any comments are gratefully received!**


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